Shadow Puppet

by Jeffrey Round

  Downstairs, a line of solitary figures stared at their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. These were the men who had long since given up the fight, knowing the world was a terrible place and only liquor could save them, finding their salvation at the bottom of a bottle. All hail drink, our saviour and redeemer!

  Dan bypassed them and headed upstairs, where it took a moment to recognize the sweet, musky odour. You know a leather bar is real when you can smell the rawhide, Donny once told him.

  The place was packed. He watched as several contestants arrived, discarding bulky winter wear to reveal the many variations on leather gear. The skin beneath that bound its wearers together. Here, the mood was cheerful, the camaraderie high. He’d be hard-pressed to find a murderous intent in this group, at least tonight.

  Across the room, Woody raised his eyes from a video camera set atop a tripod. His face lit up. “Dan, my man! Thrilled you could make it!”

  Dan took in his tapered black curves and heightened masculinity. The sleek sheen of animal pelt. He felt the same rush of infatuation he’d experienced on their first meeting. “You look great, Woody.”

  “Me? Just look at you! You could win this contest hands down.”

  “Not my scene, but thanks.”

  “Most of the guys are here,” Woody said. “Not Nabil. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I wasn’t really expecting him to show.”

  “Grab a pint, why don’t you? I’m almost set up. We’re opening in five.”

  “I’m mostly a ginger ale man these days, but I’ll get something. Anything for you?”

  “Nah, I’m good, thanks.”

  A burst of raucous laughter erupted from the far end of the room. Heads turned to where half a dozen men were gathered around a diminutive figure. Dan was surprised to see Domingo’s friend, Edie Foxe, at their centre. She wore a peaked cap and carried a riding crop, and was swatting playfully at several of the men. She wasn’t the only woman at the event. Over in a corner, someone’s plump grandmother adjusted her leather skirt, while a third would have made a stand-in for rocker Joan Jett.

  Dan had just taken a seat near the back when the lights dimmed. The audience applauded as the judges assembled to one side of the stage.

  Woody waited till they were seated then grasped the microphone. “Welcome to the twenty-fifth annual Mr. Leatherman Toronto contest. I’m Woody Whitman, a former Mr. Leatherman winner. Tonight, we’ve got some great contenders for the title. Your applause may sway the opinions of the judges, so when I ask you to clap for each of the contestants, make sure they can hear you! The winner goes on to represent Toronto in the International Mr. Leatherman contest in Chicago, so let’s send them our very best! Now let’s bring out our guys.”

  The contestants marched on stage and lined up at the front. They ranged from fresh-faced striplings to older men with impressive musculature. But not one, Dan thought, would have rivalled the absent Nabil Ahmad for sheer physical presence.

  With their sharp-brimmed caps and calf-length boots, they might have been an advance guard from the Third Reich or a squadron of Hells Angels. Some of the gear served no purpose other than to showcase the flesh on display. Straps to lift and divide, pouches to cup and square, thrusting everything forward. Clad only in his navy T-shirt and jeans, Dan felt like a pretender who’d broken uniform code among all those heavy-duty guys in their skins and gleaming studs.

  Music swelled and spotlights narrowed as Woody announced the show’s kick-off, “Pecs and Personality.” And who said leathermen don’t have a sense of humour? Dan mused. The crowd cheered as the half-dressed beauties preened and pranced like show ponies, stripping off their gear and striking their poses, while Woody’s camera lovingly followed them around the stage. Despite the overt sexuality, the antics were as harmless as a Bettie Paige summer wear pin-up.

  As the evening progressed, a youngster with black hair and slashing blue eyes caught the audience’s attention, a thrill rippling through the crowd each time he stepped on stage. For once, however, age wasn’t an issue. Some of the contestants were in their forties and fifties — leather-daddies who knew the routine. One man looked to be in his late sixties. He was a silver-haired monolith with a physique many younger men would envy. Another was a rawhide Quasimodo. His muscles bulged grotesquely, his veins taut beneath his skin, the flesh on his face twisted into rivulets. Steroids, Dan thought, recalling what Prabin had said about Nabil’s pronouncements on performance-enhancing drugs.

  During a break, Dan worked his way around the room, chatting up his fellow onlookers, flashing photos and asking whether they knew either Nabil or Joe. A trio of bystanders recalled Joe from the poster, but no one claimed to have known him well or intimately.

  “These men are missing from the community,” he offered before anyone could wonder why he was asking. “The police don’t seem interested, so I’m looking into it. I’m a private investigator. I’m also gay.”

  “And incredibly sexy,” one of the men offered to his face. “You should be up on stage with the others.”

  “Thanks,” Dan said, tucking the photos back in his wallet, “but not for me.”

  The lights dimmed and the show resumed with a change of costume and another round of flexing. Speeches followed. Some of the topics were political, others personal. The older man told of having been rounded up in the infamous bathhouse raids of 1981, describing how men’s wrists had been marked with indelible ink in a fashion eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Holocaust prisoners.

  Woody returned to the microphone.

  “You’ve seen our fab contestants. While the judges are tallying their marks, I want you to take a look around the audience. This is your chance to nominate anyone who isn’t on stage. Let us know if you see someone you think should be up here.”

  Three men raised their hands. The first pointed to a youth on the far side of the room. He’d come dressed in full leather regalia, like a hopeful understudy waiting to play the part of a lifetime. Two others pointed at Dan.

  “Over here!” one of them cried. “This one’s a winner!”

  “Let’s bring them up,” Woody said.

  The youngster was only too happy to oblige, bounding on stage to enjoy his moment of celebrity.

  Dan protested, but Woody smiled and shook his head. “We might have to get physical if you don’t come willingly.”

  Three men hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him up, depositing him in front of the crowd.

  Woody turned to the men who’d brought him up. “Uh, guys — I think you forgot something. You know the rules. All contestants must wear some form of leather.” He stripped off his vest and tossed it to them.

  The crowd cheered as two of them wrestled Dan’s T-shirt over his head and the third helped him don the vest.

  Woody nodded approvingly. “I think we would very much like to see these guys here next year for real. Am I right?”

  The cheering was raucous. Dan couldn’t wait to escape.

  The contest resumed and the elimination began. They were soon down to the finalists. Dan wasn’t surprised to see the pretty, blue-eyed boy standing alongside the older man and a redhead with an impressive physique. The boy was declared second runner-up. The crowd grew silent. Woody announced the judges’ choice — the older man was going on to the finals. The music swelled as the audience headed for the stage to congratulate the winners.

  A commotion caught Dan’s ears behind him. He turned and saw Edie Foxe fending off a drunken audience member. “Keep your hands off!” she commanded, slashing with her riding crop.

  The offending drunk seemed not to have felt its bite. “C’mon — show us your tits. I know you’re a guy!”

  Three strikes across his face and he stumbled backward, fending off further blows with his hands. Edie stood before them, crop raised. “Anybody else?” she demanded.

  “Edie, relax. He was only joking,” said one of the men watching.

  “Fuck you!” she said, and stormed off, sh
oving people aside as she went.

  Not such an adolescent boy now, Dan thought.

  A moment later he found himself face to face with Woody.

  “Dan my man! How’d you enjoy it?”

  “Great show. I especially enjoyed the visuals.” He started to peel off the vest, but Woody stopped him.

  “Keep it for now. It looks good on you. I’ll call for it another time. I wanted you to meet this guy.” He held out a hand to draw someone near. “Lucian, meet Dan. Dan’s a private investigator. He wants to ask you about Joe.”

  It was the steroid queen, Dan noted. There was a frenetic look to his eyes, a mis-wiring of the synapses. Up close, his massive pectorals looked freakish.

  “You knew Joe?”

  “Yeah, I did. We dated a few times. He was a super guy.”

  Dan noted the use of the past tense. “Any idea what happened to him? Where he might have gone?”

  Lucian shrugged his massive shoulders, reminding Dan of the Incredible Hulk. “Nah. No one’s seen him for a while.”

  “Is it possible he moved away without telling anyone?”

  “Could be.”

  “Can you recall when you last saw him?”

  “A year ago, maybe more. I’ve been living in the States for a while. He was gone by the time I got back.”

  “Do you happen to remember his last name?”

  He rubbed his chin and appeared to be putting an effort into thinking. “Nah. We didn’t really do last names.”

  “Was he into anything kinky?”

  The man laughed. “He was a leatherman. We’re all into something kinky!” Then he grew serious. “But — yeah. Guy was on a suicide mission. When it came to anything sexual, he didn’t do ‘safe.’ It was like he wanted to die. I wasn’t all that surprised to hear when he went missing. I thought maybe he met his match, if you know what I mean.”

  Dan bristled at the man’s callousness, but he wanted to hear more. “Was he popular around the scene?”

  Lucian smirked. “You could say that. He certainly got around. He did a porno once.”

  “He was a porn actor?”

  “Yeah, a starring role and everything. Oh, yeah. Joe was popular.”

  “Anything else you can remember about him?”

  “Yeah, there was this one other thing he had about being strangled. He’d put his hands around your neck when you were about to come, thinking it would give you a lift. The first time he did it to me, I freaked out and popped him on the nose. He never tried it again, though I kind of wished he had.”

  His cracking knuckles could be heard over the noise of the crowd.

  ELEVEN

  All That Stuff

  DAN STUMBLED OUT OF BED and headed downstairs, thinking he was making enough noise to wake the dead. It was still dark outside, the daylight an hour away. This was a time that could yield some of his best thinking, or make him wish afterward that he’d slept in.

  In the kitchen, Ralph looked up from his bed.

  “It’s early. Go back to sleep, Ralphie.”

  Ralph thumped his tail twice against the floor then laid his head back down. But his eyes stayed open so as not to miss anything.

  Dan opened the fridge and peered inside. Sometimes, when Ked wasn’t around, he had a Coke for breakfast. It was a habit he’d started when he stopped drinking. The first month had been hell. He sometimes downed four in a row to get the monster out of his mind, scraping his stomach raw in the process. Whatever it took to forget his cravings. Then again, who said caffeine was any better, he thought, turning on the coffee maker.

  His need for self-flagellation only seemed to increase with age, the propensity for tolerating self-inflicted punishment growing stronger, though the methods might differ. Sometimes he wondered if that was why he couldn’t forge a lasting relationship. Then he stopped himself and thought of Donny, Prabin, Domingo, and Ked’s mother, Kendra. He could, it seemed, with the right sort of person. Tellingly, those relationships were more often than not with outsiders of some sort. Friends who understood otherness. He’d always felt like an outsider.

  A text from Donny alerted him to a follow-up article on Randy Melchior’s murder. CCTV footage had captured the doctor in a 7-Eleven just a block from where his body was found. Dan clicked on the link and watched a young man and woman enter the store moments after Randy. Randy made his purchase, a chocolate bar, then exited. The pair followed him out.

  They’d been identified by an elderly woman as the couple who stole her purse at knifepoint in another part of town on the same day. The girl had stopped her to ask directions when the boy attacked her from behind. It seemed the duo was on a holdup spree, only in Randy’s case it ended in murder.

  A blurry image lifted from the footage showed the young suspects in close up. There was nothing especially memorable or remarkable about them. Don’t hardened criminals have nifty Facebook photos to use these days? Dan wondered.

  He recalled Domingo’s prediction that the crime would prove to have been perpetrated by two people. She’d also predicted drugs were involved. Once again, she was bang on. According to the article the pair were drug addicts. In truth, he liked it when she was right, even if he didn’t admit it.

  The first time she’d helped him with a case, he’d been skeptical. The second time, he admitted it embarrassed him to ask for her assistance. “You’re not the only PI who ever used a psychic to catch a criminal,” she told him. “Or to run a government. William Lyon Mackenzie King used to hold seances to ask his dead mother’s advice while he was prime minister.”

  Dan stared at her open-mouthed for so long she burst into laughter. “Nice to have a private senatorial committee on the other side,” was all he could think to say.

  His cell rang, interrupting his thoughts.

  “So, what do you think?” Donny asked breathily.

  “What do I think?” Dan repeated as he fumbled his coffee cup with one hand and juggled the phone with the other. “I think coffee should be given intravenously.”

  “I was referring to the story. Did you read it?”

  “I read it. It looks highly unlikely that the people behind Randy’s murder are the same people behind the disappearances.” He took a sip. “But I didn’t see anything saying those two were apprehended. Did you?”

  “No. But at least they know now who they’re looking for.”

  “Meanwhile, they’re still out on the streets doing god knows what to other hapless victims. People have no idea how dangerous drug users have become. And it seems as though there are far more of them now than ever.”

  “But she was right.”

  Dan played dumb. “She?”

  “Domingo!”

  “Oh.”

  “She was right about what she said. She said it would be two people, one to distract and the other to attack. Drugs, too. She even got that right.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Donny snorted. “You don’t fool me. I know you secretly enjoy it when she’s right. Have you followed up on your leathermen angle?”

  “Yes, I did. I went to the contest last night.”

  “And?”

  “I got crowned Mr. Wannabe Leatherman or some such.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Do I ever?”

  “No, you’re not really capable of it. You are the most annoyingly literal person I have ever met. But apart from your so-called coronation, what did you discover?”

  “I discovered that Nabil Ahmad probably had a good shot at becoming Mr. Leatherman Toronto. He was stunning in that peculiar garb they wear. There were a few other contenders, but Nabil would have aced it in the looks department. From his photos alone, you can tell he has charisma to burn.”

  “Whoa! Do you think he was kidnapped to give someone else a shot at the title? I mean, that’s like something out of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

  “Out of what?”

  Donny spluttered. “The picture that put Bette Davis and Joan Crawford back on the cultural
map and single-

  handedly invented the psycho-biddy genre!”

  “Oh, that. You know I don’t do campy B movies.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Yes, I do. And that’s why I avoid them. But no, I don’t think Nabil was taken out of the contest to give someone else a chance to win the title.”

  “Hmm. Actually …”

  “Yes? Actually?”

  “Sorry, I was wrong. The film I should have compared it to is Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story, about the mother of a cheerleader who hires a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter’s rival —”

  “Well, I’m not going to watch that one either. But still no, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Then what do you think is really going on?”

  “I met one of the contestants last night — big guy, massively on steroids. Lucian something or other. He knew Joe, the guy who disappeared last spring. He said Joe was into dangerous sex. Said he liked to fake-strangle his tricks.”

  “Charming. I wonder how you bring that up on a first date.” He paused. “This Lucian guy — could he have anything to do with the disappearances?”

  “I don’t think so. He was living away when Joe disappeared and said he just found out about it when he got back. He didn’t seem too surprised, though. Or sympathetic. What exactly do those drugs do to your brain?”

  “No idea. Hope I never find out.”

  Dan heard a noise behind him and turned to see Ked enter the kitchen, his eyes glazed, hair a broomstick of angry straw. He glanced down at Dan’s cellphone as though recognizing the source of a bad smell or maybe wishing it harm.

  “Say hello,” Dan commanded. “It’s not nice to listen in without identifying yourself.”

  Ked rolled his eyes. “Duh. I’m not CSIS, Dad.” His voice was a croak. To the phone, he said, “Hello, Uncle Donny.”